Zimbabwe under siege

The UK could learn a lot from Germany’s long-term industrial strategy

Posted by seumasach on March 31, 2016

With a consensus emerging that the British steel industry is a strategic asset which must be saved and a leader of the opposition calling for a “strategic state” and a”national investment bank”, the post- thatcherite consensus on non-interventionism is breaking down. This is a very recent shift and a very sharp check on the opposite trend embodied in the Tory/SNP regionalisation of Britain project. Both centripetal and centrifugal forces are currently vying for primacy and yet it is clear that central control is necesarry to rebuild Britain’s industrial base.

30th March, 2016As a share of its economy, Germany’s manufacturing sector is twice the size of Britain’s – 23% of national GDP, compared with 11%, according to the World Bank. Unlike Britain, it runs a large surplus on trade in goods. The German steel industry has not buckled under the pressure of dumping by China.